Frank Lindh really didn't do his son any favors yesterday when he told reporters gathered at the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Va., that 20-year-old John Walker Lindh "loves America" and that his time in an al-Qaida training camp has been misunderstood.
"John did not do anything against America," Lindh said with a straight face. "He is innocent of these charges."
In America, patriotism has always been the last refuge of a scoundrel, but Lindh's plea on behalf of his son may be the first time that "love of country" was used to explain the actions of a citizen who took up arms against his nation's military interests.
Sure, it looks bad when a defendant on trial for engaging in a conspiracy to kill Americans wraps himself in the same flag he allegedly shot at, but hypocrisy wasn't a crime the last time I looked. If it were, then America would be thick with criminals.
Minutes before Lindh gave journalists their absolute limit of absurd quotes for the day, his son stood before U.S. Magistrate Judge W. Curtis Sewell looking more like the Prodigal Son than a terrorist fiend from Mazar-e-Sharif.
The man the world has speculated about nonstop since he was hauled half-alive from a burning dungeon in November wanted the judge to understand that he wasn't the "John Walker" the media had pieced together from scattered images and brief interviews. That "John Walker" didn't exist anymore.
As America's designated poster child of radical chic, he'd managed to stir passions out of proportion to his actual place in the scheme of things. "John Walker, American Taliban" wasn't going to get a fair trial.
His attorneys understand the necessity of short-circuiting public expectations. When the magistrate referred to their client as "Mr. Walker," they were waiting. Their client's surname was Lindh -- John Lindh, they insisted.
He wasn't Suleyman al-Faris, Abdul Hamid or some other foreign name. He was his father's son -- the offspring of the man supermarket tabloid stories had jeered as "the American Taliban's gay dad" for weeks. John Lindh no longer wanted to be referred to by his mother's maiden name, as had been his custom. The judge quickly fell into line with the new reality and corrected himself.
Instead of a feral brute, a young suburbanite with a shaved head stood before the judge politely answering questions. The televised images of a bearded man with long matted hair who refused to cooperate with his "friendly" CIA interrogators in November, gave way to the new reality -- thanks in part to government-mandated buzz cuts for all al-Qaida prisoners.
It's interesting to note that we're finally in an era when looking like a skinhead isn't the liability it would've been just a few years ago.
Given the seriousness of the charges against him, John Lindh could use whatever sympathy his resemblance to a typical suburban skinhead might generate in an American courtroom.
But he won't have an easy go of it. John Lindh will have to refute charges that he gave aid and comfort to an enemy his country was at war with. It's obvious that he turned his back on his country's interests even before Sept. 11. But it isn't clear that he subscribed to the philosophy that culminated in al-Qaida's murderous assault on America.
The sad irony of his situation is that most of the charges against him were culled from statements he made to investigators at a time when he lacked basic legal counsel. This is as much a black mark against Attorney General John Ashcroft, a man who appears inordinately suspicious of due process.
At 20, John Lindh is probably a naive spiritual wanderer who got caught up in the "romance" of jihad. He doesn't strike me as a true ideologue. This doesn't minimize the seriousness of his crime if it can be proved that he fired upon another human, but it should give perspective.
John Lindh is a loser, not a demon, but he seems to have given moral support to a terrorist organization. If convicted, he should pay whatever price the court mandates. If he's found "not guilty," I could live with that verdict. Somehow, it doesn't seem right that a man go to prison for the rest of his life simply because he fell in with the wrong crowd at 18.
Tony Norman's e-mail address is tnorman@post-gazette.com.
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